May 2009

May 31, 2009

in the weeks leading up to the release of Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan began the PR push for the film. At the time that I had an opportunity to catch up with him -- having spoken to him three times before (for Nomads, on location with GoldenEye and for Dante's Peak) -- James Cameron's Titanic was on the horizon, and nobody knew what that would mean to the Bond film. In the first part of this interview, we discuss the impact the success of GoldenEye had had on his life and career, and a bit of the story evolution of Tomorrow Never Dies. More on the latter will elaborated on when part two posts later this week.

May 30, 2009

BBC America has announced that its picked up the British series Being Human, which follows the lives of a vampire, werewolf and ghost that share a house together. It sounds like a sitcom, but it is, instead, a riveting series that, during the course of its six episodes, is suggesting a power along the lines of Buffy or Angel. For full details on the show, head over to our sister site, Vampire Paradise, by clicking HERE.

May 27, 2009

Laura Vandervoort is, of course, best known these days for having play Kara/Supergirl on Supergirl on Smallville. But there’s a lot more to come from her. This month look for her starring turn in the Warner Premier DVD film Into the Blue 2, in which she plays Dani, who must work with her husband Sabastian (Chris Carmack) and several others to try and find the lost treasure of Columbus, but instead is involved with a race to find an errant nuclear device before a group of criminals do.More recently, Laura spent two days on the set of the new “V”, playing the character of Lisa who uses her sexuality to manipulate teenaged humans into siding with her people against their own kind. In the pilot she has her sights set on Tyler Evans and his best friend, Brandon. In the following exclusive interview, Laura discusses both projects.

VISITORS AMONG US: When you’re doing a movie that’s a DVD sequel to a theatrical film, is there a stigma attached to it?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: Oh, yeah. Any sequel has to try to live up to the original. I think we did a good job of not following the storyline exactly. We have our own adventure, an action-related story. I think we did a good job. Of course there’s going to be a stigma of it being a bathing suit movie with some young people and that there won’t be much to it, but I think we found a good storyline. We’ve got some great actors in it, so hopefully people will like it.

VISITORS AMONG US: I thought the plot element of Into the Blue 2 regarding somebody searching for an errant nuke was pretty cool.

LAURA VANDERVOORT: They added that aspect into it to get the guys to watch, and also the girls. My character gets to be the strong one in the movie, which is a nice change from a lot of other movies out there. The girl gets to save the day and she’s just as strong as her partner, Sebastian.

VISITORS AMONG US: Being a strong female should be nothing to you.

LAURA VANDERVOORT: [laughs] I’m trying to make a living off of that.

VISITORS AMONG US: Is that what drew you into the film?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I didn’t know much about the original Into the Blue except that there are a lot of bikinis and I wasn’t sure if that was for me. But there was really more than that, because my character, Dani, in the script is actually a lot tougher. What drew me to it, and I think what I’m drawn to in a lot of roles, is the chance to play the ass-kicking girl. I just find damsels in distress to be a little dull. In this one I got to do a lot of action, I was scuba-trained, I was doing a lot of stunts and actually fractured my ankle while we were shooting the movie. But it’s worth it. I love all of that stuff more than anything, to just really put your heart and soul into it.

VISITORS AMONG US: When you’re playing a kick-ass character, how much of that is a reflection of you as a person and how much of that is wish fulfillment?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I think my boyfriend would tell you that I’m not tough. I cry and all of that, but I think getting these roles is an opportunity to express that side of me. I was in karate for so much of my life that I have that need to kick butt to get the adrenaline out. I think that’s a great place to do it, because I get to do it as another person. I can go nuts and people aren’t going to think I’m strange, and I can be really butch. As much as it might not be believable to some people because I’m some blond girl, I love it. Most of the stuff I’ve done since Into the Blue have been cops, aliens and crazy stuff I love to play.

VISITORS AMONG US: Speaking of aliens, how did you come to be involved with “V”?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I got a phone call. They were shooting in Vancouver and I’ve played an alien similar to the one in “V” before and they wanted to know if I wanted to be a part of it. I jumped and said, “Yeah!” It was just two days of shooting for me, because it’s an introduction of my character in the pilot. If it goes to series, hopefully the character will evolve. It was great. I’ve never seen the original, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. There are a lot of good rumors on set that this is going to be big. They have a good cast, and I play the enticing young teenage alien trying to enroll the teen humans on the ship with her looks.

VISITORS AMONG US: I know you only played her for two days, but in your mind who is your character of Lisa?

ABC has given the greenlight for "V": The Series for 13 episodes scheduled for midseason. The series, a remake of the '80s version, stars Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell as FBI agent Erica Evans, who ultimately leads a resistance movement against the alien Visitors, who claim to be our friends but who are actually here for conquest. In this first audio/video podcast from our sister site, www.visitorsamongus.com, we take a look at promos for the original and ABC versions and feature an audio excerpt from an interview with actress Laura Vandervoort, who plays the Visitor Lisa on the new show.

May 26, 2009

The new Star Trek succeeds on a number of levels, one of which (and it’s fairly significant) is the establishing of the relationship between Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock. As was the case with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, there’s an instant rapport between the two actors that translates on screen. And in terms of the characters, there is a whole new level of connection made by the fact that Nero is responsible for the death of Kirk’s father and Spock’s mother. Interestingly, the inspiration for this, according to co-writer Bob Orci, was the relationship between Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney.“We looked at John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s friendship as part of our model for Kirk and Spock,” says Orci. “They were opposites and they bonded very young because they both lost their mothers when they were teens.They might not have actually gotten along at the time had it not been for that kind of a bond. They were the only ones who kind of understood each other’s pain about having lost their mother, so they were definitely an influence on Kirk and Spock. You know, Star Trek and the Beatles were products of the ‘60s, so sometimes you have to tie it all together.”So, which of the Star Trek team is Lennon and which is McCartney? “The more you read about them, the more you realize how they each had elements of the other,” Orci notes. “The Yin and Yang each have elements of the other color within their spot. I think it depends on the day. On the one hand you can say that Lennon was the intellectual like Spock, but on the other hand he was also kind of the leader of the band, so you can say he was Kirk in that way. And certainly Paul had more of the Spock haircut and the eyebrows. I guess we’ll be able to answer that one later, when we see how Kirk and Spock develop.”But Orci considers this question a moment longer before adding confidently, “You know what? Spock is Lennon, because Paul is the optimist who can kind of see through the pain and still keep his chin up. That’s Kirk. Spock is a little more fatalistic with his logic, as John Lennon was.”

Check out the book Trek Classic: The Unofficial Making of the Original Series by clicking HERE.

May 22, 2009

As J.J. Abrams’ version of Star Trek has proven, the idea of new actors taking on the roles made famous by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelleyand company seems like something of a no-brainer. But this wasn’t the first time the idea was broached, producer Harve Bennett and screenwriter David Loughery having worked on a prequel following their efforts on 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.“Every time they went to make one of those Star Trek movies,” explains Loughery, “the producers and the studio always ran into the same problem in getting the original cast together. The reasons for that were money, power, creative differences, ego, health, unavailability… all of those things. [Producer] Harve Bennett always had this ace up his sleeve, which was if we can’t get everybody together for one of these Star Trek movies, we should do a prequel.”Starfleet Academy, which ultimately fell aside in favor of 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, chronicled the story of a young James T. Kirk, a Spock who is estranged from his parents and becomes the first Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy, and Leonard McCoy, a 30-year-old doctor who attends the Academy after having pulled the plug on his terminally ill father and is searching for meaning his his life. Michael Curtiz’ 1940 film The Santa Fe Trail served as an inspiration for what Bennett envisioned as the classic triumvirate’s first trek. The film which could have been made, according to Bennett, for $27 million. would also have avoided the hefty multi-million dollar salaries of Shatner and Nimoy, as well as the escalating payments made to the other cast members.David Loughery explains, “When I heard about the idea, I thought it was terrific. Not from the point of view of recasting, but from the point of view of storytelling, because I worked so closely with the characters on Star Trek V, that the idea of doing an origin story – where you show them as young cadets – was tremendously exciting. What it was, was a real coming of age story. In outline form, it was the story of Kirk and Spock meeting for the first time as cadets here on earth. We’ve got a young Jim Kirk, who’s kind of cocky and wild. He’s not exactly what you might think starship captain material might be. He’s like one of these kids who would rather fly hot planes and chase girls. Spock is this brilliant, arrogant, aloof to the point of obnoxiousness, genius. It’s this mask he’s hiding behind to cover his own conflicting human emotions. He’s an outcast, he left Vulcan in shame against his father’s wishes and, like all adolescents, he’s trying to find a place to fit in, but he keeps screwing it up.“Over the course of this story,” he continues, “which is one year at Starfleet Academy, Kirk and Spock are sort of put to the test and they begin as rivals and end up as friends and comrades who learn that they have to combine their talents for the first time to defeat a deadly enemy. In the final scene, where they say goodbye at graduation and go their separate ways, we’re able to see the legend that these two boys are going to grow up to become. We felt that there was a powerful story there, one that the audience would be interested in. We’re always interested in young Indiana Jones and young Sherlock Holmes, and how they started and came to be who they are. This was sort of the way to explain Kirk and Spock and where they came from.”

To learn more about the history and voyages of Kirk and Spock, check out author Edward Gross' book Trek Classic: The Unofficial Making of the Original Series, a comprehensive behind the scenes look at the 1960s show featuring a complete episode guide and interviews with dozens of writers, directors and producers. For more information, just click HERE.

May 09, 2009

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek
has the ability to reawaken the dormant Trekkie within you. That’s certainly
the feeling you get as you walk out of the film, suddenly aware of why you had
fallen in love with the franchise in the first place. Kind of like that moment
at the end of Wrath of Khan, when
Bones asks Kirk, “You okay, Jim? How do you feel?”, to which Kirk responds,
“Young. I feel young.”

There’s
a sense of Trek giddiness that struck
this writer that hasn’t been felt since the months and weeks leading up to the
release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture back in 1979. And while that film, in many ways, took away a bit of
the joy, this new one merely makes you hungry for more. Thankfully the taste
for that particular meal can be satiated with the CBS/Paramount release of
season one of the original series on Blu-ray.

On a
creative level, season one of Star Trek was
all about the bringing together the elements that would come to define the
show, and its evolution is obvious as the season unfolds. Along the way we
start to sense the depth of the Kirk/Spock relationship, which manages to be
given even more weight thanks to the addition of the Abrams film.

And part
of the key to the Blu-ray set, as inadvertent as it may have been, is that it
serves as the natural follow-up to that big screen adventure. In particular,
one should check out the episodes “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the second
pilot, and the first to team Shatner with Leonard Nimoy) and the first regular
episode shot, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” It’s a whole new experience following
the feature film as the actors are still discovering themselves, and the
characters each other.

May 05, 2009

While J.J. Abrams reimagines Star Trek for the current generation, Trek Classic goes back to the beginning to explore the creation, development and evolution of the original 1966-69 television series that inspired him. Armed with the voices of dozens of writers, directors, producers and actors, veteran entertainment journalist Edward Gross goes behind the scenes of every episode of the original Star Trek. New material in this revised edition (which had its beginnings as a part of Captains’ Logs: The Complete Trek Voyages), in addition to the satirical artwork Tom Holtkamp, explores the connection between key guest characters or episodes and future adventures set in the universe created by the late Gene Roddenberry. Plus a special appendix section provides an in depth behind the scenes look at the Deep Space Nine episode “Trials and Tribble-ations,” a 30th anniversary tribute to the original that ingeniously ties the two shows together. Whether you’re a veteran fan or newly converted, these are the original voyages of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov and Scotty. Where J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek ends, Trek Classic begins.Trek Classic: The Unofficial Making of the Original Series is available for $15 (postage paid) in the United States and $20 (postage paid) outside of America. To order this book, please click HERE.